I EASILY recall to mind my farewell days in Samoa, and the native trader with whom I lodged. His homestead was a comfortable bungalow, sheltered by coco-palms, and not far from Saluafata village. I had not much money at that time, and my friendly native only charged me just what I could afford to give him, which was, unfortunately, very little. He had three daughters and two grown-up sons who were just about my age; they spoke good English, were good companions, and we had merry times together. I gave the eldest daughter music lessons during my short stay. Her father purchased a cheap German violin down in the stores at Apia, and the Samoan’s daughter made rapid progress. I taught her to play by ear. Her relatives came in from the districts to hear her play her first Samoan hymn. I have never been so complimented for my teaching ability in my life as I was over that dusky girl’s progress. I felt well repaid by their gratitude. They fed me up, for I had been ill for a fortnight with a severe cold and was getting thin. I went off almost every evening with the sons fishing, and lived in real native style. I enjoyed the various native dishes, for Mrs Pompo, my host’s wife, was a clever cook, and served up the cooked fish with stewed yams and many more island delicacies. Poi-poi was a favourite dish: a mixture of taro, bread-fruit, yams and wild bananas.
My host had several wealthy relatives living inland, and at last the sons, young Pompy and Tango, succeeded in persuading me to go off to the inland villages with my violin to visit them. I well remember the long, hot march they gave me, as I tramped between them for miles and miles along tracks just by the coast, and then inland across paths by the coco-palms. Some of the journey was over rough jungle country beautiful with tropical trees and flowers. Merrily my comrades sang as I plucked the fiddle strings, banjo fashion, marching along far away, with the civilised cities thousands of miles behind.
We slept out the first night, as indeed I often did in my travels. Pompy and Tango lay asleep on each side of me as, sleepless, I looked round my bedroom floor and saw my palm-trees standing windless and still and my bright stars over me flashing in the midnight skies.
Next day we passed across thick island jungle and then suddenly emerged on to a large clearing, where by a river stood several isolated huts. Through the doors came rushing brown-faced native girls, with delight and wonder shining in their dark eyes at hearing the music of the fiddle! Like little dark devils bare-footed children came running behind us, and then, just as we were passing close by the half-open hut door, out came the picturesque bigger girls for the second time, for they had seen my white face and had rushed indoors with haste, all screaming out, “Papalangi!” They had forgotten their fig-leaf, so to speak. At the very most, natives, boys and girls who lived inland, wore little dress beyond the primitive ridi, and if they wore more than usual it was some remnant of European clothes, given them in exchange for curios, or as wages by artful traders.
On the green, scrubby slope, under a palm-tree by her hut door, stood a full-figured, dark Samoan mother, showing her white teeth as she smiled. She looked like some grotesque statue as she stood there quite still beneath the blue tropical sky, for she wore a delicate undergarment as a robe, which just covered half of her bronzed figure—a present, possibly, from some trader’s wife.
As the native girls came down and walked by me, gazing sideways with great curiosity, the tall grass brushed their bare knees and their eyes shone as they revealed their pearly rows of teeth and laughed, calling out to each other, “Arika pakea!”[5] Samoan girls are great flirts, yet I felt that I trod some enchanted land where vice was unknown. The faint inland wind stirred their loose, bronze-coloured hair, wherein they had stuck white and crimson hibiscus blossoms or grass. Several little mites, with tiny wild faces, came close up to us and stood with boastful bravery a moment in front of me, their little demon-like eyes anxiously striving to examine my violin, and when I suddenly struck all the strings together—r-h-r-r-r-r-r-r r-r-n-k—off they rushed back to the hut doors and gave a frightened scream. Out poked the frizzy heads of all the mothers to see what the hullabaloo was about. When they saw me they waved their dark hands and shouted, “Kaoha!” or “How do you do?” as I tramped by between my two comrades.
5. White man.
About a mile farther on we came across another small group of huts, not far from a grove of orange-trees, where we picked the golden fruit out of the deep grass; it tasted like pine-apples and oranges mixed. Only two old native women were in sight. They were very busy, it was their washing day, and one of them stooped over an old salt pork ship’s barrel, washing the village clothes: on a line hard by, stretched between two coco-nut trees, hung a row of newly washed ridis, steaming in the hot sun. As we approached, Pompy and Tango intimated that it was the abode of one of their great relatives. On the ground beneath a clump of bamboos, stretched out flat, was an old Samoan chief. “O Le Tula!” Pompy shouted, and the old fellow slowly lifted his wrinkled face and welcomed us. My comrades, his grandsons, jabbered away to him in native lingo, and introduced me with pride, telling me that I was gazing on one of the past great chiefs who had been King Malietoa’s special favourite. He had a classical profile that was slightly spoilt, for one of his ears was missing; it had been blown off by a gun-shot in a tribal battle some years before. As I gazed upon him with reverence his eyes looked straight in front of him and he pulled himself up majestically. His large frame was well tattooed. Suddenly he signed to me and said something over and over again in broken English. When I at last understood I forced a smile to my lips and handed him my last shilling. I could not very well refuse, as I had walked many miles to see him. He grabbed the coin, and his face went into a mass of wrinkles as he grunted out “Mitar.” On a slope about five hundred yards off was a tin-roofed mission room, and a missionary’s homestead close by. There was only a half-caste assistant there; “the Boss” had gone off to Apia. The half-caste seemed a decent fellow, and gave us a cup of German tea; for Malietoa’s old chief had bolted off to the nearest rum shop, miles away probably, directly he had got possession of my shilling, to get te rom.[6]
6. Gin or rum.
That night I witnessed a native dance, resembling in character the dances which I have already described in my first book of reminiscences. But this dance slightly differed from the dance scenes of my previous experience. It was more rhythmical and, instead of being grotesque, was a weirdly beautiful sight; for as the large, low moon, half submerged by the distant hill, sent a flood of light through the coco-palms and banyan-trees, it lit up the moving, dark faces on the forest stage floor, which was a cleared patch. A picturesque Samoan girl stood swathed in a girdle of festival flowers and sang, while the squatting Siva dancers rocked their bodies to and fro and clapped their hands. I stood close by and played on my violin a minor melody; and its silvery wails were accompanied by the full orchestral moan of the whole forest of giant moonlit trees as the wind blew fitfully through them. Then came the wild chorus, as the circle of girls rose and, like a crowd of wood nymphs made of moonshine, embraced each other and then divided, whirling and waving their arms fantastically in the glimpsing moonlight that poured through the palms. As for me, I stood in the middle of the dancers playing my violin and firing away double forte, and presto velocity, to keep in with the barbarian tempo. About a mile off was the spot to which I had been dragged by a tribe of natives, who had forced me to play at a cannibalistic feast during my previous sojourn in Samoa.
After the forest ball had closed, and the performers were dispersing and going off to their homes, a well-dressed native, who had known me when I was in Samoa before, recognised me, and I was extremely pleased to see him. He was a trader and an intimate friend of Hornecastle’s—my convivial old friend of earlier days. I learnt from him that Hornecastle had gone away to the Gilbert Group, or to the Solomon Isles, I forget which. The trader invited us to his house, where we spent the night. We had no sooner got under the shelter of his welcome roof than clouds slid over the sky and a terrific storm came on. It lasted well into the night and nearly blew me off my sleeping-mat, for the Samoan’s house was open all round. To ease my restlessness I rose and looked out on to the sleeping village. The rain had ceased and the moon, low on the ranges of Vaea Mountain, looked like a globe lamp wedged between the sky and the earth. Space was quite clear for miles, but far away was a travelling wreck of foaming cloud that looked like a serried line of mighty breakers silently charging across a shore of starlit blue. I well recall this particular night, for I was greatly impressed by a sad sight. Under some coco-palms just below I saw a light glimmering in one of the natives’ shed-like huts, and I heard native voices. Going down the slope, I spoke to a Samoan who was standing by the door, and from him I understood that a native youth was dying. He had been ailing for some time and had been suddenly taken worse. The relatives had fetched the priest, who was kneeling by the bed-mat giving the last benediction. I saw the outline of the sick boy’s face and the half-conscious smile of faith on his quivering lips ere he died. I will draw a veil over the rest, which would make very uncheerful reading.
The following day, on our way back, we met a crowd of English sailors going inland. They had several natives with them who had been drinking rather heavily down in Apia. As we approached, the sailors, spying me and my violin, shouted out: “Hallo! matey, where did you get that hat? Any girls round these parts?”, and then all started to do a double shuffle. Not far off was a small village, and when I offered to go there with them Pompy and Tango jumped about and laughed with delight; and the eldest seaman of the crowd, the boatswain, I think, smacked me genially on the back with such force that I looked up at him a bit wildly at first; but I quickly recovered as he gleefully gave me another nudge in the ribs, saying, as he winked with good fellowship: “Don’t kill me, youngster.”
As they approached the village, loudly singing the latest London hit, and emerged from the thickets of bamboo, a covey of native boys and girls came running down the slope, from a group of native huts, to welcome the jolly white men: two of the wild crew were blowing their hardest, mouth organs at their lips, and the eldest, who had goatee whiskers, and wore a Tam o’ Shanter kind of seaman’s cap, sang lustily, with wide opened mouth, just behind them; at intervals he stumbled slightly through being half-seas-over.
Sunset was fading on the horizon out seaward and touching the coco-palms and the distant mountain range with golden light as the shadows fell over the island. From the hut doors the naked children peeped and clapped their hands with delight. The primitive town fairly buzzed with excitement when, under the palms, Samoan maids whirled around, clasped in the arms of the joyful sailors, who made the wild island country echo to their singing voices. A crowd of stalwart Samoan men left their work on the banana plantation close by and came to watch the sailors ashore. Dressed in their ridis only they stood, with their white teeth shining and their eyes sparkling merrily to see the novel sight. The pretty Samoan girls screamed with laughter, and their long brown legs went up and swung across the grass and fern-carpeted floor of the primitive ballroom, as they twirled round and round in the sailors’ arms, and looked over their brown shoulders at a corpulent, fat native woman, who hailed from the Solomon Isles. For she imitated the drunken boatswain’s high kicks and fell down, purposely, on her heavy bareness, to the shrieking delight of the whole onlooking village, as I played the fiddle. “Birds of a feather flock together” is a true saying; and I must confess I enjoyed myself seeing my countrymen so happy.
At the far end of the village was a native store, run by a half-caste who sold kava and terrible stuff called the “finest whisky.” When the first dance was over, with their bashful partners on their arms, dark eyes looking up admiringly into blue ones, they all went across the slope to get refreshments. The sailors had money and treated the natives, who were all on their own, for the missionaries were away on the coast somewhere, attending a festival. So the mission rooms were deserted, and the lotu songs unsung that night, and the sailors were welcomed by them all as missionaries had never been. Pompy, Tango and I followed the crew about and they treated us to lime-juice drinks; we refused the whisky. When they were all primed up again with native spirit, and the stars flashed over the windless palms, they had another dance, and six native women, who did not care a “tinker’s cuss” for anyone on earth when the missionaries were away, stood opposite the sailormen all in a row, mimicking them in a jig, the hibiscus blossoms stuck in their thick hair tossing about.
The missionaries somehow got to hear of it all and there was an awful row. Some of the women were taken before the fakali, or native judge, and fined a dollar, one month’s wages, and they sat with shamed faces for hours in the mission room, counting their beads (about the only dress they had worn that night), doing penance, while the real culprits went on to their ship out in the bay.
When we got back, in the early hours of the morning, old Pompo jumped off his sleeping-mat and started bellowing at his two sons for overstaying their leave. I took all the blame, and explained that the old grandfather, the late high chief Tuloa, had been so pleased to see us that we had been compelled, through sheer courtesy, after his enthusiastic welcome, to accept his invitation to stay on. Hearing this, the old chap toned down, and we went to bed and slept soundly.
I went on the tramp steamer S—— next day and applied for a berth. The chief mate promised me a job; so I went back to my friend the Samoan’s home and stayed there till the matter was settled.
Nina, the youngest daughter of my host, who was about twelve years of age, was an extremely pretty girl, and very romantic. A day or two before I left Samoa I came across her sitting by the shore holding a sea-shell to her ear, listening attentively to its murmur and singing to herself.
“Why do you listen to the shell’s voice, Nina?” I asked.
“They are singing to me,” she said, as she looked up into my face with earnest, wondering eyes.
“Who is singing to you, Nina?” I responded, rather surprised at her remark and the assurance in her manner that someone was singing to her in the shell. Then I heard from her lips an example of the poetical Arabian Nights of the South Seas. Crossing her legs, she arranged her pretty yellow frock, then put her finger up as though to tell me a great secret, and as I sat by her on the rock she told me the following story:—“There still lives an old heathen god deep down under the sea. His home is a large cavern, so big that its roof is the floor of all the ocean. In this big cavern is a beautiful country, lit up by the light of all the sunsets that have ever sunk down into the great waters out in the west. For it is in the west, deep down in the sea, where the old grey-bearded god’s door is. Every night, just as the days are going to bed, the lonely god stands by his door, with his big watching eyes gazing up through the waters, as the sun sinks slowly down into the sea. For he knows it is on the sunset fires that he will catch the shadows of dead Samoan sailors who have been drowned by the upsetting of their canoes when the great storms blow. For when they die their shadows swim away to the sun directly it commences to sink, and then, clinging to the golden light, they go down, down, and are caught by the big god as he stands by his door under the sea, pulling the sunset in as a fisherman does his nets.”
“And what does the god do with them, Nina?” I said, as she sat hesitating and looking up at me with her pretty brown eyes.
“Well,” she continued, as she put her finger to her lips and dabbled her little brown feet in the waves that crept up the shore in foamy curls, “for thousands and thousands of years he has been watching and catching the dead sailors, and all those who are drowned in the storms; and as he stalks along through his wonderful countries, his endless forests under the sea, moving through the light of yesterday’s sunsets, all the shadows of the dead sailors follow behind him, singing, and begging him to catch also the dead girls and women who have been drowned. But in a deep voice that echoes, and is the thunder you hear when the storms blow, he says: ‘Mia fantoes’ (my children), ‘you must only love me and not love mere women.’ But still the shadows follow him, imploring and singing, ‘Oh, bring us the beautiful dead girls and women’; and their voices, for ever echoing through the cavern roof, come up to the top of the ocean shores and caves, and you can hear them, though they are far away, faintly calling, calling to the big god under the sea. So all the girls and women come down to the shore and, if they have no one to love them, they put the shells to their ears and listen to the calling voices of the dead sailormen.”
“Do you believe that, Nina?” I said, as I looked at her.
Then she nodded her pretty head with absolute conviction; and I too listened to the shell’s murmur and pretended to be astonished and convinced. “Nina, and what becomes of the dead girls who are drowned?”
For answer she looked up at me sorrowfully for a while, then said: “The big sea-god is jealous of women, so he takes them out of his nets of sunset and throws them back into the waters, just as a fisherman does with the fish that are of no use to him.”
“And what becomes of them then, Nina?”
“They turn to ruios” (sea-swallows), “and you can see them very early after dawn flying away into the fire of the rising sun, whence all that is beautiful comes”; and saying that she looked up at me with her pretty eyes staring thoughtfully.
“Who told you all those beautiful things, Nina?” I said.
A River Wharf, West Africa
Then she looked up and told me that when she went to see her grandfather, who was that old chief, “O Le Tula,” he told her many wonderful things about the sea-gods, and the old heathen gods who once lived in the clouds and the forest of Samoa. So I tell you that which Nina told me, though I could never infuse into her beautiful, simple story the earnestness of her pretty eyes, the note of certitude in her innocent voice, or the poetry of her childish imagination.
I liked that little Samoan maid. “Good-bye, Nina,” I said, after bidding the others farewell.
“You go away on te kaibuke[7] and never come again?”
7. A ship.
“I may come back some day,” I answered. I saw the tears in her eyes as I left her. She’s a woman now. I wonder if she remembers me.
Before I proceed I must relate an adventure I had while passing along a forest track after playing at a native dance. It was a beautiful evening; the coco-palms, mangroves and dark orange and lime trees were bathed in the sunset’s light, and the soft wind from seaward drifted sweet scents to my nostrils. I was hurrying towards Apia town before dark came on. Suddenly I heard a scream! The knight-errant fever of other days leapt like lightning to my eyes: a woman was in distress. I stood still and cursed inwardly, for I had only my violin as a weapon. I threw my shoulders back, looked swiftly at the skies, then rushed up to the slope’s top. A white man stood under an orange-tree; in front of him was a beautiful Samoan girl. He seemed to be a large-framed, well-knit man, and I felt a tiny thrill of hesitation; but in the forest shadows just behind me my old heroes, with dauntless eyes, seemed to be shouting: “Forward to the rescue of distressed loveliness—onward!”
The white man had once more gripped the native girl and was shaking her. Her eyes looked around appealingly. The supreme moment to do or die thrilled me. I dropped my violin-case and, longing for a comrade, with a bound I was on him! For a moment we wrestled silently. “Ach Gott!” and “D—n!” the villainous seducer muttered as I gripped him by the throat! Crash! On my head came a blow—the Samoan girl had struck me on the back of the head with my violin-case! I heard the fiddle within hum trr-err-rh, as the four strings vibrated to the blow. They were jealous, quarrelling lovers, and the girl, seeing that I was getting the better of the German, had suddenly relented. I had a thundering headache all night and have never rescued a woman since.
I saw an old Mataafan chief die of old age in Saluafata village. I shall never forget the sight, or my feelings at the time. He lifted his aged, shrivelled face from the sleeping-mat, whereon he died, and begged the heavens to save him. Around him wailed his children and grandchildren; he was well loved, for all seemed earnest in their grief. I saw his eyelids close; I heard him murmur in Samoan a prayer to the gods of old, for the child’s belief revives at death. His dying frame tried to sit up; the tattoo engraving on his breast, of warriors and weapons, went out of shape as his skin wrinkled in agony, and then his eyelids closed for ever. His death forced me to wonder on the mysterious cruelty of the Universe. Theologies give death a divine intention, but that sight affected a sense in my innermost soul, and death did not appear to me as a boon.
Soon after I joined the ship in Apia harbour. We stayed in port a few days, and then I shipped on the Golden Horn, bound for the Marquesas Islands. I had been there a year or two before and had a fancy that I should like to see the old spots once more. The schooner’s crew were mostly Samoans, the cook being a German. The skipper, Alfred Richardson, an Englishman, was not more than thirty years of age. I slept in the cuddy. The “Old Man” took a fancy to me, or at least to my violin-playing, so he, the English mate and I had a fine time together.
The weather was squally for a week and kept the crew busy, and then a calm fell and we hardly moved. The boat was a splendid sailer and ran like a hound with the yards almost squared. I remember the beautiful, calm nights as the sails half filled and flopped and the rigging rattled. The ocean about us was drenched with mirrored stars; so calm and bright was the water that we could look over the side and see the shadow of our ship and all the silent heavens over it, and the mirrored, beautiful katafa (frigate-bird) sail across the sky on silent wings.
The Samoan sailors squatted on deck and sang weird ditties; I played the violin, and even the skipper joined in in good fellowship. Sometimes we fished and caught bonito, a beautifully coloured fish. Soon the wind sprang up again, and we made rapid headway across the wonderful world of waters. One moonlight night I was standing on the starboard side thinking, and gazing at the sky-lines, ghostly bright in the moonlight for miles around us, when the great ocean silence was broken by a complaining monotone, such as you hear when you place a sea-shell to your ear. I instinctively gazed over the side and saw far off, opposite the weather-side of the moonlit sky-line, curling and tossing breakers, where liquid masses soared and dissolved on the coral reefs of an enchanted isle; for enchanted it looked to me as the tiny wind drifted us onward. Slowly the inland palm-clad mountain ranges rose, and the groves of coco-palms and dark-leafed tropical trees, and out of the creeks and bay came native canoes filled with paddling, singing savages! Presently we saw their dusky faces as they raced across the moonlit water, bringing their bargains of fruit, pine-apples, wild bananas and corals; and alas, two or three of them, who had no wares to sell, were accompanied by their immoral wives!
Up the side they came, clambering like savage mermen out of the ocean depths. Their frizzly, wet heads came above the rails and, puff! they leapt on deck and pattered about on naked feet. They were pleasant, bright-eyed, shaggy fellows and the world’s greatest talkers: they jabbered and jabbered till sunrise burst over the ocean, and before us, over the bows, half-a-mile away, lay Hiva-oa.
I asked the skipper to give me a long leave of absence ashore. “Very well, Middleton, we are not going for a fortnight. You can go off; and mind you behave yourself and bring that fiddle back.”
“All right, sir, and thank you,” I said gratefully, for he really did treat me as though I were a passenger. I had played cards with him and taught him melodies by ear on the fiddle.
“Come on, Sam Slick,” I said to my comrade, who was an American fellow and came from ’Frisco. I was reading Sam Slick the Clock-maker, and so gave him that name, for he was a kind of Slick. He was about twenty-six years old, but as boyish as I was; a merry-looking fellow, with a little straw-coloured moustache, grey, kind eyes, thin lips, good-natured and determined, and his long legs balanced on enormous feet. We went off, and I had not gone far before I met a Frenchman who had known me on my previous visit. I understood from him that a lot of the people I had been friendly with before were still living there.
Slick, who had not been to the Marquesas before, was enraptured with the sights we saw. I made him go up to Turoa village and see the natives en déshabillé. He made a splendid pioneer forest breaker, as his boots crashed down and levelled the jungle scrub, and I followed cautiously in the track he left behind him. The heat was terrific when we arrived, at last emerging from the thick tropical scrub and dust into the native town’s open space.
There was a store erected by the village, a new wooden, one-roomed shed. We fairly steamed as we loosened our shirts and stood drinking native toddy, and the little wind blew through the pandanus and dark spreading palm leaves on to our bare breasts. Out from their beehive-shaped huts came the Marquesan girls, dressed in their undraped beauty. Their fine dark eyes shone and their somewhat sensual lips, laughing, revealed their pearl-like teeth. The Marquesan girls are slightly darker skinned than the Samoans, and do their hair very attractively, almost with a Parisian effect. Some of the youths also bunch their hair up, and it is impossible at times to tell the difference between the youths and the maids till they stand in the grass smiling before one, and one sees the straight limbs of the males and the feminine curves of the dusky, smiling Eves. Sam Slick’s eyes twinkled with curiosity and very evident pleasure as they spoke to him in pidgin-English and by signs. One pretty girl, about fourteen years old, held her own baby up for our inspection. Slick held it in his hands. It was not much larger than a green coco-nut. Its skin was a pretty red-tinted brown colour. I held it on one hand and, to please the admiring mother, kissed its tiny bald head. Then all the little native children, who had crept up to us and were watching our white faces with childish interest, rushed back under the forest palms, screaming with delight. Off they went to tell the whole village population that the big white man had kissed Temarioa’s fantoe (child) on the head. I gave the girls a coin each, and they clapped their hands and said: “Yuranah!”[8]
8. Thank you.
Man’s imagination could never picture a paradise to outrival the beauty of that Marquesan village. But on we tramped, and as we turned up the winding tracks we sighted the sea, and the waves breaking in the hot sunlight over the reefs by the palm-clad shores, and far away we saw the masts of our schooner, the Golden Horn. We got hold of a half-caste, who took us off to the various tribal districts and then left us. In the solitude of the bush-land, sheltered by an enormous tree, we saw a large wooden god. As we approached, and our feet snapped the twigs, a frightened Marquesan girl, who was kneeling before the hideous, one-eyed, grimy wooden god, rose and fled like a frightened rabbit. We saw her hair flying in the wind over her bare shoulders as she faded away in the forest glooms, just looking over her shoulder once with awestruck eyes as she ran, and then disappeared!
Slick and I were quite impressed by the sight of the running wild girl, and then we stood and looked up at the heathen idol. It was about eight feet high, broad shouldered, and the acme of ugliness. It was considerably decayed, for one eye was gone, and swarms of large white-bodied ants filed in and out of the curved wooden lips. “Fancy praying to that thing,” said Slick. “Yes, seems strange,” I responded. My comrade caught hold of a large bough, and standing a little way off swung it back; and then crash! he smashed the old heathen deity’s head in! Then we stood and gazed upon it, and across the forest silence came a low wail of anguish, as once more we saw the heathen girl run across a cleared patch, running so fast that we could only just see the twinkle of her bare legs as she fled in terrible fright at seeing us crash her god’s skull in, and yet both stand unharmed!
Slick wasn’t anything of a poet, or even of a reflective temperament, but the silence of that spot, the broken god and the poor, terror-stricken girl made him say: “Well now, did you ever, mate!”; while I too looked round half frightened and said, “No, I never; but I’m off.” When I explained to him that the girl would rush and tell some more of her tribe, who were Christianised but worshipped idols on the sly, and that they would come into the forest and get their own back, probably by strangling us and serving us up at the next cannibalistic feast, he too agreed. Just as we turned away, and I had carefully placed the god’s eye in my pocket as a valuable curio, we heard a noise and looked over our shoulders. About twenty stalwart Marquesan savages were leaping towards us, not half-a-mile away! I am tall, and to this day I thank God that my legs are long. I know not what my primitive ancestors were, or what deeds they were capable of, or what barbarian strain they have infused into my blood, but I always feel thankful that they gave me the capacity for fast running! I never knew that Sam Slick could show such swift movement either, as simultaneously we made an unprintable remark and like two race-horses, chin by chin and neck by neck, we bolted off. I had been to the Marquesas before, and I knew that the inland tribes still nursed old cannibalistic appetites, and an intense hatred for those who hurt their gods, and that knowledge electrified my feet. Only the mechanical pumping of our breath could be heard as we raced across the slopes. Presently I saw that I was gaining in the flight; my nose was moving through space just about one inch beyond Slick’s nose! The savages were shouting behind us! I distinctly heard the wild, savage wails, and looking back I saw their dark faces coming through the forest of palms. Slick’s face had gone white; mine, I think, had turned ashen-grey! The sound of running in the forest just behind us grew louder. If we did not reach the village before they overtook us we should have to fight for our lives. I had by then gained the courage of resignation, and turning slightly I gazed back through the great beads of perspiration dripping from my eyebrows. I told Slick to “P-p-pp-ick—up—sti-ick—as—you—r-run.” Each word came out in jerks, for at that time we were almost tumbling down a steep slope. As we rushed up the next incline I spied some stout branches, and together we stooped and gripped one each. “I’m done, Slick,” I muttered. “So am I,” he breathed out, as we stood on the top of the slope and entrenched ourselves behind a lot of bush, prepared to sell our lives dearly. We both felt nearly dead as we leaned against each other and prepared to give battle to the semi-savage men who were rushing down the opposite slope.
Then the strangest thing happened, but one which I believe happens to most men. When we found that we had to fight a splendid delirium thrilled us. We piled the dead logs up, gripped our weapons and waited with a grim feeling of exultation at our hearts: we would go down to the festive board game!
Slick stood by my side, a real brick. “Let ’em come, the brutes,” he said. Up came a stalwart fellow and almost leapt over our branch parapet. I lifted my club and down it came, crash! on Slick’s head! I shall never forget that terrible miss of mine, or poor old Slick’s cry as I fell, and the savage buried his teeth in my leg, while with both my hands clutching his hair I called loudly to Slick to help me. Down came my chum’s club on to the foe’s shoulder, and in a moment we had him up bodily and between us swung him and hurled him over the dead wood; and down the slope he went rolling!
All this had only taken a minute to happen, and the remaining members of the horde were all standing at the bottom of the slope to see the result of their leader’s attack. When we returned their chief to them half dead they stood perfectly still, hesitating, and looking up to us tried to call a truce.
“Got any tobacco plug with you, Slick?” I said quickly. To my delight my comrade pulled out two plugs of ship’s tobacco. I broke it into four pieces and holding it up in my hand I said, “Tobac! tobac!” and made friendly signs. In a moment the grim, savage faces of the foe were lit up with smiles. All the dusky lips grinned and, incredible as it may seem, they came rushing up the slope with outstretched hands. I at once made signs to them not to come too near, and then called the best-natured-looking one; and, as he came close up to me, I stretched forth my hand and said: “I give you te pakea.”[9] Then I put a bit of tobacco plug in his dark fingers and signed to him that if they all went away I would give him a lot more. Upon which he went back; and presently all his companions went away up the slope opposite us, and standing at the top of the hill watched the truce-bearer return to us for the promised tobacco.
9. Tobacco.
“Don’t you give it him till they go another mile off,” said Slick; and after parleying again we got them out of sight, and then, to make doubly sure, gave them only half of the remaining tobacco. As soon as the truce-bearer went off with it to his companions we took to our heels and did not stop running till we arrived at the village where we had left the half-caste guide. Outside the guide’s homestead we lay and rested for two or three hours before we recovered from our exertion in the sun, and the fright. We told the guide about the idol, and he said that if we told the authorities they would go and arrest the Marquesans. Then he asked us if we would be witnesses and not say that he had anything to do with giving them away. I at once declined, and so did Slick: we did not want the whole tribe to swear a vendetta and seek our lives.
We made ourselves comfortable and happy in the village. Many of the old chiefs lolled about by the huts, pretty little homes made of twisted bamboo, elevated on crossed palm stems. Scarred with old wounds which they had received in tribalistic battles, they looked grim, wonderful warriors. Some were tattooed extensively and had large hairy warts on their cheeks and ears. They loved to talk of the good old days ere the bloated whites came across the seas and the Marquesan Rome fell. Sly old native women, hideous and wonderful looking, peeped at us, then sighed, and went on chewing their tobacco or betel-nut. Pretty girls, with hats made of palm leaves and clad in a mumu[10] trimmed with flowers, passed along the tracks that lead from village to village.
10. A tappu-cloth chemise that reached to the knees.
As we went on after resting we heard the confusion of noises in the native huts. In some the occupants were singing happily and in others shouting with hot rage in family squabbles. Often a youth or a girl suddenly rushed forth from the den door, flying for dear life, as the old chief’s gnarled, tattooed face peered forth, ablaze with anger that his own children should dare argue with him and say the heathen gods were only wood and stone! Sometimes babies disappeared in a mysterious way, and the native mothers wandered about the villages beating their hands together and wailing most mournfully. Terrible rumours floated about in those days, for some of the old chiefs had a taste for “sucking long pig”: no man who had any respect for his soul would swear by it that the grizzly old chiefs, and old concubines, did not sit by the festive fires far away inland and gnaw the bones of those very missing children!
Slick and I bathed in a lagoon and felt greatly refreshed. I rubbed the bruise that my club had given him with palm-oil, and though he moaned a bit the lump soon went down. Next day we went to our schooner and slept on board. The skipper was away for a week, so we once more went off wandering, and when we returned to go aboard, to our surprise the Golden Horn had gone! She had been originally chartered to take a cargo of tinned meats and foodstuffs to Papeete and many of the isles and groups scattered about, and had suddenly received orders to sail. The skipper had sent off to try and find us, and then left word that he would probably be back in three weeks. Three days later, being stranded, we went aboard a trading steamer and asked for a job. She was bound for the Carolines, and then across to Samoa and Tonga. They did not want any hands, so at dusk, just before she sailed, Slick and I went down in the hold and stowed away. They put the hatch on about ten minutes after we had got below and we were then imprisoned in darkness. We lay side by side against some barrels and bunches of green bananas and unripe oranges, which are always plucked green for cargo purposes. We had a terrible time together. The days and nights became a blank. We lived on the bananas and green orange juice. At last in our desperation we climbed up over the barrels and thumped the decks, but no one heard us. As we lay down, trying to sleep, large hairy ship rats jumped at us and squeaked. I struck at them with my violin-case and smashed it, and as I lay half asleep I felt their soft snouts poke and sniff in my ears. Slick swore that they were flying rats, because they seemed everywhere and flapped about. We found out after that large island cockroaches were flying about us and the rats were leaping at them!
Slick became as downhearted as I did, though he was a good fellow and brave too. “I’d sooner have stopped in Hiva-oa for years than go through this, mate,” he said. One night, when the steamer was rolling and pitching, I sat on the barrel by Slick’s side and played the violin furiously. “Perhaps they will hear that,” I said. “Go on, scrape the d——d thing,” said my comrade, and I tore away at full speed. “It’s no good, Slick. It’s blowing hard. Can’t you feel her rolling? We must wait till it’s calm.”
Next day, or night, it was silent, and we only heard the screw-shaft revolving, so I got the violin out and started scraping again. I must have torn away for two hours. Suddenly a stream of light flooded over us! The man-hatch had been lifted off! And the crew of astonished sailors, and the skipper, mate and chief engineer, were looking down!
“God d—n it! I wonder what next is going to happen on this old packet!” shouted the astonished skipper. “Come up, you men.” Slick went up the iron ladder first and I followed after, while the chief mate looked grimly down at the bare banana stems and at heaps of green orange peel. They had heard the violin through the storm, during the first night’s orchestral appeal for help, and had come to the conclusion that a ghost was aboard. For, as the mate told me afterwards, it was only a wail that sounded faint and far off above the storm. The skipper forgave us and we were treated well—considering our sins. I was placed in the stokehold and Slick was put to coal-trimming. When we arrived at Upolu (Samoa) Slick made up his mind to stay and go off with her to Honolulu. I left. Nina, Pompo and all my old native friends were delighted to see me again, and took me straight off on a fishing excursion round the coast.
I never saw Slick again; but if ever he chances to gaze upon these reminiscences he will see I have remembered him, and still feel that I could not have found a better comrade the world over for the escapades that we went through together.